


Earthkeeper

by dwyndling



Series: chi [7]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Earthshaker (Keyblade), Gen, Keyblade Wielders (Kingdom Hearts), Keyblade-centric, Keyblades (Kingdom Hearts), No Name (Keyblade)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22158652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwyndling/pseuds/dwyndling
Summary: Vines and chains have become interchangeable.
Series: chi [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583548
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Earthkeeper

Strength...waiting to be claimed. Just out of reach, in the guise of an oversized key. A goal worth pursuing, something noble and ever just out of reach. 

_ Keyblade Master. One who uses their great strength to protect others. A hero. _

He carves himself a wooden replica, some time before he ever holds a real keyblade in his hands. It’s sturdy, built to last, with obvious thought and care poured into it, even when the childlike nature of it’s construction becomes more obvious as time goes on.

It’s nothing in comparison to finally summoning his own keyblade. The flash of light that accompanies the weapon appearing in his hold is the light of success, and pride. His master watches with clear satisfaction, and next to him, Aqua claps excitedly, despite the fact that she’d already summoned her keyblade for the first time a few weeks before.

Their training commences in earnest now, as Master Eraqus begins instructing them in the same forms and kata they’ve already learned, but now accompanied by a true keyblade instead of the lightweight wooden staffs they’d previously trained with. It is not an easy task, but he learns to cherish the ache in his muscles, the strain that accompanies him as he falls asleep that whispers words of encouragement, that with this amount of effort, surely he’ll be Master material in no time.

Their small class goes from two to three, in an unexpected occurrence. Though Ven seems more puppet than human sometimes, it’s hard not to feel compassion for him. If still silent, and barely aware, he at least seems in acceptable physical health, as he watches him and Aqua spar in the courtyard. 

Soon enough, as the years pass in quick succession, Ven turns their duo into a true trio, as he too reveals an aptitude for the keyblade. It’s hard not to be a little impressed, as it seems that wherever it is Ventus came from, he’d already had a certain amount of combat experience, if the ease of his forms and the speed of his attacks are to be believed. 

It’s also hard not to feel a little jealous. Who is Ven, that he’d already gotten to experience battle? It doesn’t matter. When he himself is a Master, then he can go anywhere and do anything he wants...in time, Ven will come to him with admiration, asking about his surely heroic exploits. 

It’s a nice thought to fall asleep to, at any rate.

The Mark of Mastery exam looms over the horizon, a promise to accompany the dawn. The falling stars glitter especially bright that night...he’s so close. All he has to do is not mess up tomorrow, and mastery of the keyblade will be awarded to him. 

The anticipation is tinged with a bitter nervousness that sits deep in his stomach, and that the weight of the keyblade in both his hand and his heart does nothing to dispel. ‘Earthshaker’, he’d named it, as the sheer weight of it was very effective for sending shockwaves attacks, as he’d learned after dropping it in the library one time more than ideal. 

It’s grown proportionately longer as his own stature has increased, but the design and coloration of it have remained the same since he first called it to his hand. It’s sturdy, and not too fanciful. Rather like him, but it’s simple common sense that a keyblade would reflect their wielder.

The morning dawns, and with it, the Mark of Mastery exam. 

It is not a hard test, and all in all, as he stands slightly out of breath after the duel is over, Terra is rather pleased with his performance. He didn’t make any major mistakes, held it together well enough, much better than the nervous twisting in his stomach would imply, and showed good grasp of the techniques he’d been taught. 

Which is why, when those daming words arrive from the voice of his teacher, it’s all the more crushing. He tries to keep his face even and calm, but it’s hard, when both his stomach and his heart are twisting and curling themselves into angry knots. 

_ In that moment...he’d used the darkness? It didn’t feel dark, that sudden stab of anger and fear, maybe a grey area as opposed to pure light, but evidently that’s bad enough in Master Eraqus’s eyes. _

_ It can’t be wrong to feel fear. Anyone would be nervous during the biggest test of their life, right? As for the anger...that just shows how much he cares.  _

_ Right? _

A chance...a mission...a chance to get away from this feeling for even a little while. He eagerly jumps at it, determined to succeed. This is his moment, failing the exam was just a minor setback. He can do this easily, and march back in a parade of glory to tell Master Eraqus of his accomplishments. 

And if Master Xehanort wants to offer his own new brand of advice to him in the hall, what’s the harm in that?

The outside worlds...are new and strange and colorful. He expected to be more excited to finally see them, but frankly, his task weighs him down until it’s all he can think of. Testing his skills against the Unversed proves a worthwhile challenge, and finally he can let loose in his combat prowess without having to worry about hurting one of his friends. 

His friends...are they disappointed in him? Despondently, he looks at the orange wayfinder in his hand. It sparkles in the afternoon sunlight, the finely wrought metal and glass both a gentle reminder and a taunt of what he left behind. 

Fighting is a good way to work off these strange and confusing feelings. The conflict in his heart is excellent fuel for the strength behind the swings of his keyblade, and for awhile, he doesn’t even bother to question if it’s light or darkness that courses through him in the heat of battle. It simply is. 

His keyblade looks the same, for the most part. Something about it feels new...and different, but maybe that too is just a reflection of he himself changing and growing. Is he so different just from his taste of the outside worlds?

_ Have...Aqua and Ven changed this much as well? In so little time too. _

“...Master Terra.”

It only furthers his resolve, hearing those words. If there was any doubt in his heart before about what it is that he should really be doing, it waffles no longer. 

There is still a faint itching sensation, of what Aqua and Ven might think of him. But surely they’d understand? They couldn’t be so blind as to fully believe that Eraqus’s views were the only right thing in the whole universe…

He soldiers on, with only the thought that, if no one else, at least the wise Master Xehanort still believes in him and his potential.

It is on his visit to those quiet islands that something definite shifts. He bequeaths the power of the keyblade to a small boy with grey hair, whose light shines so brightly against the calm backdrop of this mostly empty world. 

And after that, his keyblade has changed shape, into...something that’s both different from its former self and yet even more the same.

This...now this could be a keyblade that belongs to a Master.

_ Ends of the Earth. I have almost reached my goal. _

Things derail quite quickly after that. He duels Eraqus, even as he can barely believe what he himself is doing. Ven is safe now, he keeps reminding himself, and that’s what was most important in that situation. 

_ To protect what was most important to me...that’s the whole reason I wanted to become a Keyblade Master. And now...now I need to protect Aqua and Ven from Xehanort...and the mess I’ve made of everything.  _

_ Should...should I be protecting them from myself?  _

The clash with the old master rings out against the blackened sky. The eerie light of Kingdom Hearts shines down from above, illuminating the conflict with a dispassionate glow. 

_ Aqua...Ven… _

_ Aq...a….V..e… _

Wherever he is now, it is completely dark. No sensation ripples over him, no light, no touch or any feeling of the outside world. 

Xehanort’s voice, his entire demeanor, is unbearably smug. He’d like nothing more than to beat up the old master yet again, and feel that unbearable and addictive catharsis of power running through his body…

But of course, he can’t. So he sits in the dark, biding his time. There’s no way from him to summon Ends of the Earth...and in some ways, he begins to forget what that sensation was even like.

_ There is another piece of him, far from here. The unbearable desire to fight, to survive, to  _ persist.  _ It stays captive within his old armor, determined to continue on through sheer strength in lieu of a proper body or heart. His keyblade stays with that piece of him, the sheer desire to protect now made incarnate in weaponised form.  _

The darkness around him shifts, sometimes staying calm, other times rippling around him with undeniable volatility. It’s especially pungent to be nothing more than a heart in this state, ricocheting around the shadows of who knows what. Is he even in his own body anymore? Or something entirely different... 

Sometimes, his mind greets him with flashes of a silver and black keyblade, curling into wicked spikes. Xehanort’s keyblade...must be in his grip. It resonates with him, even as he attempts to forcibly deny it’s presence. He has no hold, no control over what the body that cages him is doing. 

Perfectly helpless, suspended in the darkness. 

And then one day, after who knows how long, Aqua is  _ there, _ dutiful, disciplined virtuous Aqua, and she  _ doesn’t _ hate him. It frightens him, the dull terror in her eyes even as she expresses relief at seeing him, and the evident sleeplessness that pervades her whole demeanor. 

_ What horrors is she having to deal with...alone? _

At least Ven seems safe enough from what Aqua describes. Someplace that Xehanort can’t get to him...a place he can never be allowed to fine. 

Making sure it stays that way is plenty reason enough to justify sinking back into the dark. 

...light.

The bonds are ripped away from a mouth he finally finds himself in control of. He takes a ragged breath, grasping for the use of vocal chords that he has all but forgotten how to control. 

_ Light _ . It nearly sears his vision, but he ignores it, stumbling over to the bodies of the two most precious people.

_ The union of body and heart. Humanity. _

Calling Earthshaker to his hand for the first time in a decade shouldn’t feel nearly as effortless as it does, but it’s enough to make his throat tighten as his old keyblade settles in his grip. He raises it alongside the others, even if he really has no right to be there, and watches with everyone as the heart-moon surge forth in luminescence. 

_ His heart and body are his again. No one else’s.  _

Bittersweet reunion...the reclaiming of himself, regardless of whether he even deserves humanity anymore. His heart beats with assurity he has yet to accept, and the power that rests within it is shaped with blue and gold and copper, not silver and black.

Keyblade Master...what a trifling thing to wish for.


End file.
